In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the employment of adults with autism and other developmental disabilities. Many posts have discussed programs to provide them with training and experience.
In 2016, 17.9 percent of persons with a disability were employed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. In contrast, the employment-population ratio for those without a disability was 65.3 percent. The employment-population ratio for both persons with and without a disability increased from 2015 to 2016 (by 0.4 percentage point for persons with a disability and by 0.3 percentage point for persons with no disability). The unemployment rate for persons with a disability, at 10.5 percent, was little changed from the previous year, while the rate for those without a disability declined to 4.6 percent. The data on persons with a disability are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of about 60,000 households that provides statistics on employment and unemployment in the United States. The collection of data on persons with a disability is sponsored by the Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy. For more information, see the Technical Note in this news release.
Highlights from the 2016 data:
--Nearly half of all persons with a disability were age 65 and over, about three times larger than the share of those with no disability. (See table 1.)
--For all age groups, the employment-population ratio was much lower for persons with a disability than for those with no disability. (See table 1.)
--For all educational attainment groups, jobless rates for persons with a disability were higher than those for persons without a disability. (See table 1.)
--In 2016, 34 percent of workers with a disability were employed part time, compared with 18 percent for those with no disability. (See table 2.)
--Employed persons with a disability were more likely to be self-employed than those with no disability. (See table 4.)
